Crazy Rich Asians strikes gold again in third weekend, crosses $100M

The summer movie season may be coming to an end, but Crazy Rich Asians is still going strong. Warner Bros’. ritzy romantic comedy is on track to collect an estimated $22.2 million in ticket sales at 3,865 theaters in the U.S. and Canada from Friday through Sunday, topping the box office for a third consecutive weekend. Factoring in Monday’s holiday crowds, the film could bring in around $27 million to $28 million.

The three-day haul represents a decline of just 10.4 percent from last weekend, and it will push the film’s domestic total to about $111 million through Sunday. Overseas, Crazy Rich Asians will add an estimated $10.4 million this weekend, for an international total of $19.9 million and a worldwide total of $130.9 million. The film cost about $30 million to make.

Based on Kevin Kwan’s best-selling 2013 book about a Chinese-American professor (played by Constance Wu) who travels to Singapore with her boyfriend (Henry Golding) to meet his wealthy but unwelcoming family, Crazy Rich Asians comes as the first major contemporary Hollywood movie to feature a predominantly Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993. Jon M. Chu directed Crazy Rich Asians, and the ensemble cast includes includes Michelle Yeoh, Gemma Chan, Awkwafina, and Ken Jeong.

Led by Crazy Rich Asians, this year’s Labor Day weekend box office marks a sharp increase from last year’s two-decade low, which didn’t even feature a new wide release. Comparing the Friday-Sunday frame, this year’s total box office is up 28 percent, according to ComScore. (Overall box office is up 9.9 percent year-to-date.)

New at the multiplex this weekend are MGM’s historical drama Operation Finale, which will earn about $6 million at 1,818 theaters, good for fourth place, and Lionsgate’s sci-fi thriller Kin, which will earn about $3 million at 2,141 theaters, putting it in the No. 12 spot.

Rounding out the top five are Warner Bros’. shark flick The Meg, with about $10.5 million; Paramount’s spy sequel Mission: Impossible — Fallout, with about $7 million, and Sony’s desktop thriller Searching, with about $5.7 million. The latter film, starring John Cho as a father trying to track down his missing teenage daughter, expanded to 1,207 screens this weekend, up from nine last weekend.